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Friday, March 04, 2011

The American Bird Conservancy and Fundación ProAves secured 13 new conservation easements to protect the Cerulean Warbler and several other neotropical migrants on the wintering areas in Colombia.

Three Yellow-billed Cotingas were captured for the first time in Costa Rica; they were fitted with radio transmitters and released to learn more about the activities of this rare bird. The species is endemic to the Pacific slope of Costa Rica and Panama.

A Ruddy Turnstone migrated 27,000 km (round trip) last year, traveling from Australia to Siberia via Taiwan and then returning to Australia via the central Pacific (with a stop at the Gilbert Islands). The bird was tracked with a geolocator for two years in a row.

A cull of 4,400 Ruddy Ducks in the U.K. has reduced their population to 120 ducks. The North American species is being culled to protect Spain's population of White-headed Ducks, which has been in decline.

About 80% of fledgling Gray Catbirds in suburban habitats are killed by predators before they reach adulthood. About half of those deaths are caused by domestic cats left outdoors and most of the deaths occurred within the first week of a catbird leaving the nest.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the eastern cougar subspecies extinct, after a study of scientific literature and reported sightings from the past century. The subspecies has probably been extinct since the 1930s due to hunting.

Since the start of 2011, 80 dead baby dolphins have washed up along the Gulf coast of the U.S. Scientists are investigating whether the deaths were caused by residual toxins from BP's oil spill or some other cause.